GNOME 3 not ready yet, release pushed back to 2011

The developers behind the open source GNOME desktop environment have decided …

The developers behind the GNOME project have gathered in the Netherlands this week for the annual GUADEC conference. During a meeting that took place at the event, the GNOME release team made the difficult decision to delay the launch of GNOME 3, the next major version of the popular open source desktop environment.

The new version has been deemed unready for mass consumption and will need another round of refinements before it can achieve the level of maturity and robustness that is expected by the software's users. Although the news will likely disappoint some enthusiasts, it is consistent with the GNOME development community's conservative approach to release management and strong emphasis on predictability.

GNOME consists of open source applications and development frameworks that form a complete desktop computing stack. It provides a number of the core components that make up the default user experience in many mainstream Linux distributions, including Ubuntu and Fedora. GNOME is developed on a time-based six-month release cycle, which means that there are two incremental releases every year.

Original GNOME 3 release schedule

The predictability of the consistent release cycle is one of the major factors that has driven GNOME adoption among commercial desktop Linux distributors, but the incremental development model has largely precluded radical changes. The idea of a major 3.0 update had been discussed for quite some time, but did not initially attract much support from key decision makers.

Some GNOME developers, however, feared that the project's reduction in forward momentum was leading to a decline in innovation and a state of "decadence." These concerns prompted a renewal of interest in overhauling the GNOME user experience, a movement that culminated in 2008 with the formation of a GNOME 3 roadmap and development plan.

GNOME 3 was originally intended to launch in March of 2010, but the developers prepared for the possibility that it would not be ready in time. They decided to move forward with their plans to release a new major version, but with the understanding that they would release a normal incremental update instead if 3.0 wasn't sufficiently mature.

That is exactly what happened when the release team assessed the suitability of 3.0 in preparation for the March release. They decided to push it up another cycle and aim for a September launch. This week at GUADEC, they have once again concluded that version 3 is not yet ready. We will see another standard incremental update in September and the GNOME 3 release will be pushed back another cycle, with the aim of getting it out the door in March 2011.

A sensible release management strategy

The continued delays are not particularly troubling and a lot of progress has been made on the new GNOME 3.0 technologies over the past six months. The GNOME Shell, a new desktop user interface that is built with JavaScript and the Clutter framework, has seen an especially rapid pace of evolution and many improvements during the current development cycle. A lot of the transitional work that is taking place under the hood, such as the shift from the legacy GConf configuration system to the modern GSettings framework, is also proceeding faster than some observers anticipated.

Many Linux enthusiasts likely remember the problems that plagued the competing KDE desktop environment when its fourth major version was released in 2008. KDE 4 was launched prematurely in a partially completed state because its developers hoped that users would help identify weaknesses and accelerate the completion of the software. The plan backfired, partly because mixed messages from KDE's developers broadly distorted the expectations of the software's users.

It seems clear that the GNOME developers are carefully working to avoid falling into the same trap. They aren't going to release GNOME 3 until it's mature enough for practical day-to-day use. All things considered, the GNOME release management strategy looks sound and well-reasoned. The ongoing incremental releases have allowed the existing GNOME environment to move forward during the protracted period of development for version 3.0, ensuring that regular users won't suffer any ill effects from the delays.

"GNOME is driven by its goals to provide a quality free software desktop, and we feel that our users and downstream community are better served by holding the GNOME 3.0 release until March 2011," GNOME's release team said in an official statement. "This gives adequate time not only for feature development, but user feedback and testing."

First impressions are very important in software. When introducing a completely new user interface, it's important to make sure that it has the highest possible level of fit and finish right out of the starting gate. If users have a bad first experience, they might simply never accept the changes. As such, it's unsurprising that the GNOME developers are being cautious about the completeness of GNOME 3.

Although it's not ready for official release, users who want to get an early look at some of the key features of GNOME 3 can still choose to install the software themselves. I've been using the GNOME Shell package archive from Launchpad to periodically test the new user interface on Ubuntu, for example. We will be taking a closer look at the software and report on some of the new features in the coming months as the developers prepare for the official release.

I'm not surprised though; if you look at what they're aiming for, especially in regards to the massive under the hood changes, I would have been very surprised had they got it done 2010. There is a hell of a lot they've put on their plate as so far as moving away from deprecated components as well as moving to newer way of doing things relating to glib/gtk and so on.

With that being said I would sooner them focus on getting things working rather than trying to do pie in the sky experimenting that eventually leads to nothing. Right now the standard GUI is quite adequate for 99% of end users so why screw up a good thing? Keep the basic gui, tweak it, work on the stuff under the hood and migrate off of HAL onto using a native back end so that you don't have the half baked 'lowest common denominator' approach which HAL brings.

From a PR standpoint, yes the KDE4 launch was a disaster. From a development standpoint? I think that is a much harder argument to make. Hindsight is always 20/20, but when you have a project with such a massive scope, without a clear release schedule in mind, you have a big problem with getting volunteer developers on board with stopping blue sky experimentation and getting into making a somewhat usable product. About the only way to really get things changed is to put a real deadline in everyone's lap. Yes, 4.0 sucked. But getting it out was a major catalyst for getting the rest of the 4.x series on a clearer development track and getting developers on board with making the whole package more usable.

With Gnome3, the fact that gtk+ hasn't just undergone a major architectural change means that the scope of their work is much simpler and constrained and makes the incremental approach easier to accomplish. I do wonder though if the development of Gnome Shell and the other new tech for Gnome 3 isn't experiencing some feature creep that pushing things further down the road than otherwise.

The only trouble with this is: we know all the mistakes made with KDE 4, but now KDE 4.5 is looking like a solid release. By March 2011 KDE should have released KDE 4.6, with some features that cannot even be dreamed in the current state of GNOME (stable push e.mail notifications across all the desktop, transparent integration of all apps with IM and social networks, among 2). XRender-powered KWin is wiping the floor right now with Compiz+FOSS graphics drivers compatibility, and, although the new PIM layer is in alpha, it should be ready by KDE 4.6.

If the KDE guys deliver another heavy bugfixing cycle with KDE 4.6, and add those features that are right now in the cooking oven, whatever GNOME launches as 3.0 will look outdated, buggy and incomplete.

These experiments are cool, but all I want is something that looks and works consistently like OS X. Don't mean to start a flame war. I don't care if linux desktops don't innovate. Just focus on making it work well consistently.

These experiments are cool, but all I want is something that looks and works consistently like OS X. Don't mean to start a flame war. I don't care if linux desktops don't innovate. Just focus on making it work well consistently.

What experiments, please?

Being a Mac user for over a decade myself, I can certainly attest as to the inconsistencies in Aqua, the OS X.

Remember sheets? Sliding panes? Brushed or aqua? Mail's conjoined toolbar buttons? Terminal being so very different to similar tools on other platforms (lack of tabs, pretty re-ordering of text upon window resize, etc.)? Dare I bring up Garageband? No way to change the UI element and font size.

At another level, how about the assignment of function keys to Expose features?

Don't fool yourself. OS X has some model elements, but as a whole, it's one of the worst offenders.

Back on topic though, it's really a shame Gnome 3 won't make the first release of RHEL 6. We'll just have to hope it worms its way in later, and hope that doesn't cause too many problems.

These experiments are cool, but all I want is something that looks and works consistently like OS X. Don't mean to start a flame war. I don't care if linux desktops don't innovate. Just focus on making it work well consistently.

You could easily be misconstrued with that first sentence to mean you want Mac OS X implemented in Linux and start a few minor flames inadvertently What I think you actually mean is: you want something that looks and works consistently, in the manner of OS X.

With that being said I would sooner them focus on getting things working rather than trying to do pie in the sky experimenting that eventually leads to nothing. Right now the standard GUI is quite adequate for 99% of end users so why screw up a good thing? Keep the basic gui, tweak it, work on the stuff under the hood and migrate off of HAL onto using a native back end so that you don't have the half baked 'lowest common denominator' approach which HAL brings.

i agree 100% i don't know why they're changing the UI. the only thing i would like to see in gnome is universal search and maybe a better way to manage programs when you have alot of them installed on your computer (currently when i click application->graphics i get a list so long it goes off the screen).

i feel that the UI on all three oses (ms,osx,gnome distros) are perfect and nothing can be done to improve anything.

With that being said I would sooner them focus on getting things working rather than trying to do pie in the sky experimenting that eventually leads to nothing. Right now the standard GUI is quite adequate for 99% of end users so why screw up a good thing? Keep the basic gui, tweak it, work on the stuff under the hood and migrate off of HAL onto using a native back end so that you don't have the half baked 'lowest common denominator' approach which HAL brings.

i agree 100% i don't know why they're changing the UI. the only thing i would like to see in gnome is universal search and maybe a better way to manage programs when you have alot of them installed on your computer (currently when i click application->graphics i get a list so long it goes off the screen).

i feel that the UI on all three oses (ms,osx,gnome distros) are perfect and nothing can be done to improve anything.

I second that - what is needed is more evolution and tweaking rather than promising massive revolutions with little to be gained out of it. Sometimes a massive leap is required such as with Office and Ribbon, but at the other end I don't see GNOME Shell leading anywhere given the old method married the best of both worlds (OSX and Windows) for the *NIX world.

I've been using GNOME Shell consistently on my main machine for a year or so now, and I like it very much, although it still needs a lot of work to be ready, so I'm very glad to see this delay which will hopefully give the team enough time to get it ready for the average user.

I strongly believe that it's worth the effort to try a different way of doing things. GNOME Shell is actually not all that revolutionary - it uses many of the same concepts as the GNOME 2 interface, but presents them in a much nicer (I think, for the most part) manner. The really crazy stuff is still being thought about, and will hopefully make it in at some point in the future because there are some amazing ideas floating around.

The Gnome project shouldn't feel like it's being pushed by the KDE project. My opinion as of right now is that KDE still has a little catching up to do to overtake Gnome. The Linux distros I started on were KDE distros. After a few years I started trying Gnome distros and it seemed that I could get more work (and playing) done with a Gnome distro. The delay with Gnome 3 doesn't bother me at all. The way I modify my desktop and install makes it all good anyway. Don't get me wrong. I have a few KDE distros installed on several different partitions and they are very nice. There are some KDE applications that I like better then the Gnome ones. I suspect that a lot depends on what you feel good using. If you are comfortable using Gnome it's the best. If it's KDE then it's the best, or any of the other ones that are available. So all in all this really isn't a problem.

I couldn't care less with KDE vs Gnome debate. What troubles me is this:

Why a new interface when the old one hasn't been polished yet out of all bugs? For those of us who actually don't plan to upgrade to Gnome 3 because the current one is all we want and need, this is a slap in the face. I'd rather hoped that when I entered the Linux world I wouldn't be facing the same inconsistent (and incomplete) development cycles of many of the commercial alternatives. I obviously was wrong when it comes to desktop managers.

I couldn't care less with KDE vs Gnome debate. What troubles me is this:

Why a new interface when the old one hasn't been polished yet out of all bugs? For those of us who actually don't plan to upgrade to Gnome 3 because the current one is all we want and need, this is a slap in the face. I'd rather hoped that when I entered the Linux world I wouldn't be facing the same inconsistent (and incomplete) development cycles of many of the commercial alternatives. I obviously was wrong when it comes to desktop managers.

What are you talking about? What kind of show stopper bugs are you having problems with? I know of no show stopper bugs in Gnome. What do you call polished? A DM without any kind of bug at all? There is no such thing no matter what you use, Linux, BSD, OX 10, or MS Windows. You don't plan to upgrade and then you complain about inconsistent development cycles. At least it would be nice if you would explain yourself so you don't look like someone who just wants to start a flame war. I have no noticeable bugs on my Gnome install tho I'm sure there are some somewhere. THERE IS NO PERFECT OS, DM, OR WM. It's just perception.

I couldn't care less with KDE vs Gnome debate. What troubles me is this:

Why a new interface when the old one hasn't been polished yet out of all bugs? For those of us who actually don't plan to upgrade to Gnome 3 because the current one is all we want and need, this is a slap in the face. I'd rather hoped that when I entered the Linux world I wouldn't be facing the same inconsistent (and incomplete) development cycles of many of the commercial alternatives. I obviously was wrong when it comes to desktop managers.

What are you talking about? What kind of show stopper bugs are you having problems with? I know of no show stopper bugs in Gnome. What do you call polished? A DM without any kind of bug at all? There is no such thing no matter what you use, Linux, BSD, OX 10, or MS Windows. You don't plan to upgrade and then you complain about inconsistent development cycles. At least it would be nice if you would explain yourself so you don't look like someone who just wants to start a flame war. I have no noticeable bugs on my Gnome install tho I'm sure there are some somewhere. THERE IS NO PERFECT OS, DM, OR WM. It's just perception.

"GNOME is driven by its goals to provide a quality free software desktop, and we feel that our users and downstream community are better served by holding the GNOME 3.0 release until March 2011,"

It's amazing what some simple punctuation can do to the meaning of the sentence. For instance, "GNOME is driven by its goals to provide a quality, free software desktop," conveys what is most likely the original intent of the speaker.

On the other hand, "GNOME is driven by its goals to provide a quality-free software desktop," is what I originally read. While much funnier, I am sure that this is not the message that GNOME's release team wants people to read.

With that being said I would sooner them focus on getting things working rather than trying to do pie in the sky experimenting that eventually leads to nothing. Right now the standard GUI is quite adequate for 99% of end users so why screw up a good thing? Keep the basic gui, tweak it, work on the stuff under the hood and migrate off of HAL onto using a native back end so that you don't have the half baked 'lowest common denominator' approach which HAL brings.

i agree 100% i don't know why they're changing the UI. the only thing i would like to see in gnome is universal search and maybe a better way to manage programs when you have alot of them installed on your computer (currently when i click application->graphics i get a list so long it goes off the screen).

i feel that the UI on all three oses (ms,osx,gnome distros) are perfect and nothing can be done to improve anything.

You're kidding right? ... Windows, MacOSX, Gnome, KDE, etc, they are ALL S***. Using any of them is pissing me off after 10 seconds, and yes, I used them all.

I couldn't care less with KDE vs Gnome debate. What troubles me is this:

Why a new interface when the old one hasn't been polished yet out of all bugs? For those of us who actually don't plan to upgrade to Gnome 3 because the current one is all we want and need, this is a slap in the face. I'd rather hoped that when I entered the Linux world I wouldn't be facing the same inconsistent (and incomplete) development cycles of many of the commercial alternatives. I obviously was wrong when it comes to desktop managers.

There's no money involved in it, as you well know. Neither is that saying a philosophy behind GNU, FSF, OSS or, more particularly the Gnome project. That's the type of dribble the rabble uses when they can't come up with a meaningful thing to say when someone criticizes a project, or a line of code.

It's tiring, old and is a disservice to the fine goals of these institutions, or the people working on these projects, who wish nothing more than open and frank debate and, hopefully to drag more users into their midst without inflicting in them the fear of having an opinion, wishing to formulate a critic or even to enter healthy controversy.

What sucks about all unix desktops except for OS-X is that everything is still built on X11. The number of times this piece of antiquated junk from 1987 has held things back is just staggering. It's amazing that over 20 years later people are still using this as a foundation for a desktop computing environment.

Yes, it would take some balls to say goodbye to X11, but if you're looking to compete with commercial offerings, what do you have to lose?

Apple and MS must be quite flattered though by all the copying. That too is sad.

What sucks about all unix desktops except for OS-X is that everything is still built on X11. The number of times this piece of antiquated junk from 1987 has held things back is just staggering. It's amazing that over 20 years later people are still using this as a foundation for a desktop computing environment.

Yes, it would take some balls to say goodbye to X11, but if you're looking to compete with commercial offerings, what do you have to lose?

Apple and MS must be quite flattered though by all the copying. That too is sad.

What sucks about all unix desktops except for OS-X is that everything is still built on X11. The number of times this piece of antiquated junk from 1987 has held things back is just staggering. It's amazing that over 20 years later people are still using this as a foundation for a desktop computing environment.

Yes, it would take some balls to say goodbye to X11, but if you're looking to compete with commercial offerings, what do you have to lose?

Apple and MS must be quite flattered though by all the copying. That too is sad.

Don't look now, but OSX is from 1985, and Windows NT is from 1993.

And besides, people have tried to replace X but those efforts languished into obscurity. Plus X is getting an overhaul under the hood that's at least as significant as GNOME 3.0 to take a lot of the pain out of it.

What sucks about all unix desktops except for OS-X is that everything is still built on X11. The number of times this piece of antiquated junk from 1987 has held things back is just staggering. It's amazing that over 20 years later people are still using this as a foundation for a desktop computing environment.

Yes, it would take some balls to say goodbye to X11, but if you're looking to compete with commercial offerings, what do you have to lose?

Apple and MS must be quite flattered though by all the copying. That too is sad.

You know, I always here this but it X11 just doesn't seem that bad to me. It used to be horrific, sure. I remember using Redhat 3.0.3 and getting X working in those days was a mission.

X11 (or X10 if you want to be picky about dates) has undergone far less changes than either NeXT or Windows (seriously?? I am no fan of windows but I want what you're inhaling if you think X is comparable to windows) in the intervening years.

It's still using a client-server model, and it got compositing and transparency how many years after OS-X had it? And how hackish is it?

These other systems, while old, have progressed much, much further and it's obvious to anyone with eyeballs.

I like Gnome a lot, it is my favorite desktop environment, but Gnome 3 cannot be delayed enough for my taste. I would love it if they would just cancel it, because I strongly disagree with the idea that change, change, change is always necessary. KDE still hasn't recovered from the awfulness of 4.x. The reason I use gnome is that it is consistent, simple, and reliable. Major changes in interface and components go against all these excellent traits. Oh well, maybe I'll end up on XFCE from a lack of any real alternative for a simple, traditional desktop.

My first introduction to Linux in 2004 was in the form of Mandrake (now Mandriva, of course), which is naturally a KDE-oriented distro. I loved fiddling around with KDE 3.x and thought I was in hog heaven. Needless to say, I was hooked on KDE.

But that all changed when KDE4 came out -- I hated it so much that I did the unthinkable and switched to GNOME. I enjoyed Ubuntu and Mint in GNOME. But when I saw that GNOME was planning to dump their successful 2.x series for GNOME 3, my first thought was "I don't wanna go through that again!". In GNOME's defense, I will say that at least they're taking the wise step of making sure everything works perfectly before they release it.

But here's the problem: I like GNOME 2.x the way it IS! But they don't seem to care about that.

Therefore, due to that as well as the attitudes of some people on GNOME-Look that I cannot stand, I switched to Xfce this past spring, even though I can and have comfortably run KDE and GNOME on my computer. Therefore, as far as Linux desktops go, Xfce is where I hang my hat these days.

I love KDE 4 and I have enjoyed it over the years. Currently I use LXDE as my main DE just due to my hardware. But from all the KDE 4.0 debate what developer said 4.0 is ready to be used by the masses and they were glad that major distros were shipping with 4.0? I only remember people complaining that any .0 release should be ready for the main stream. I believe the statement is not 100% accurate or I could be totally wrong.

"The plan backfired, partly because mixed messages from KDE's developers broadly distorted the expectations of the software's users."

Who broadly distorted the 4.0 release that was a developer? Like I said I could be wrong but I felt it was the community's fault.

It has only been in the past few months that I have been able to rely upon KDE - I have 3 of the 4 partitions on my main computer set aside for one linux version or another. When it first came out, I found KDE unusable and it brought down about half a dozen installations of various sorts. I have not been able to trust it at all for a long time - I still will not push it to run compiz. It was a bad experience for me and was the simple result of turning something loose before it was ready. But welcome to the free software model folks - I am more than willing to live with it. Years of disappointing "fixes" I feel have brought us a great version of KDE.

I have always felt that Gnome has a solid approach to their releases - don't try too much too fast, but don't hold back on innovation, develop incrementally. I am not surprised by this news nor should anyone else, I believe. Neither the KDE or Gnome developers have an easy task - and are making judgments associated with features to include that are basically guessing at what will work or hinder usability on a long term basis. I have great hope for Gnome 3 and I hope they realize they could be walking on thin ice at times. I like fredbird's thoughts about xfce too

I love KDE 4 and I have enjoyed it over the years. Currently I use LXDE as my main DE just due to my hardware. But from all the KDE 4.0 debate what developer said 4.0 is ready to be used by the masses and they were glad that major distros were shipping with 4.0? I only remember people complaining that any .0 release should be ready for the main stream. I believe the statement is not 100% accurate or I could be totally wrong.

"The plan backfired, partly because mixed messages from KDE's developers broadly distorted the expectations of the software's users."

Who broadly distorted the 4.0 release that was a developer? Like I said I could be wrong but I felt it was the community's fault.

They said repeatedly that it was not ready for users, and yet the reason they cited for officially releasing it was that they wanted it to reach a lot of users so that they could find the bugs more easily. The whole thing was bizarrely paradoxical.

With all the respect, but no matter how good Gnome 3 may be, if Linux keeps breaking compatibility with hardware and software that previously worked, Linux Desktop will STILL be a bust. Breakages in compatibility have happened even on open source drivers and software (ex Intel GMA 500/poulsbo), which is a real shame.

Seriously, why everyone focuses on the apps and dekstops that come bundled with Linux Desktop, when hardware and software compatibility is the thing that needs the most work? Just look at Windows 7. It doesn't come with any apps I want to use, but I do use Windows 7. Why, because I can load the After Effects, Photoshop, Need For Speed I had purchased for Vista (or even XP) and they STILL work.

And yes, I DO BLAME Canonical's obsession with the (arbitary) 6-month release period for that.

Dear Canonical, if a compatibility breakage requires 1 additional month to fix, are you going to let it slip so you can catch the self imposed 6 month release?

PS: Gnome looks good. Kudos to the team for not minding about release dates. But it won't make any difference on Linux Desktop, mind you.

With all the respect, but no matter how good Gnome 3 may be, if Linux keeps breaking compatibility with hardware and software that previously worked, Linux Desktop will STILL be a bust. Breakages in compatibility have happened even on open source drivers and software (ex Intel GMA 500/poulsbo), which is a real shame.

The Poulsbo driver isn't open source. Ars ran a story about this while it was happening. In fact, they even had a brief just the other week about how Intel isn't allowed to ship the drivers with MeeGo due to licensing issues. That is clearly a case of crappy proprietary drivers lacking development and being inaccessible for broader development via the community. See also VIA's line of Chrome graphics. Software compatibility breaks over time for every platform, but I think the Linux ecosystem has a pretty good handle on it. Even with all the work that's been done revamping the Linux desktop and graphics stacks under the hood, I can still use apps that haven't been maintained since 2004. Hell, I can tear up an old .rpm and repackage it as a .deb with Alien and have it run without issues.

Quote:

Seriously, why everyone focuses on the apps and dekstops that come bundled with Linux Desktop, when hardware and software compatibility is the thing that needs the most work? Just look at Windows 7. It doesn't come with any apps I want to use, but I do use Windows 7. Why, because I can load the After Effects, Photoshop, Need For Speed I had purchased for Vista (or even XP) and they STILL work.

So there's a handful of applications that Windows 7 still runs, but Linux is incapable of matching that?

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And yes, I DO BLAME Canonical's obsession with the (arbitary) 6-month release period for that.

You blame Canonical for "Linux" breaking backwards compatibility? That makes no sense.

Dear Canonical, if a compatibility breakage requires 1 additional month to fix, are you going to let it slip so you can catch the self imposed 6 month release?

Obviously, yes. They do it all the time. Were you around for the whining when Hardy released with a Firefox 3.0 beta? It really exemplifies their release style.

To deal with breakage, I ended up buying a mini print server instead of trying to share a printer to WinXP via Samba, because the sharing was constantly breaking. (The last thing I debugged on that setup was Samba starting before CUPS, not finding the printer, and telling XP "Nope, not here." Had to hack /etc/rc.local to wait for cups, restart samba, and beep to let everyone know the printer was ready. Which broke again when they quit loading the pcspkr module to keep the computer from beeping at shutdown, apparently.)

That was the most painful breakage, because it affected the whole house instead of just me. Nobody else cared when the xen->kvm switch occurred with no migration tools, or gdm quit serving XDMCP and being themable. After Jaunty, I decided to upgrade to the next LTS, fix everything one last time, and then stay there until my machine gets obsolete enough to justify buying a laptop--with Windows.

Why use Ubuntu if you dislike a 6-month release schedule? There are tons of distros with much more conservative release policies... Debian springs to mind.Besides, the Ubuntu cycle was determined by the Gnome cycle afaik. That said, they could learn from Gnomes cautious approach to structural changes - take it slow and stay stable.Then again - they have the LTS releases for that.

As a long time Gnome convert (in the sense that i have considered it the superior DE compared to KDE, Windows and OSX for some years now), I appreciate the approach to 3.0. To claim the existing UI paradigms are the be-all-end-all is as silly as considering the mouse and desktop unnecessary distractions from the 'superior' commandline+keyboard combo. There are clearly things that aren't perfect, and while there is a place for the current systems in the future (like the commandline still has its place where it is genuinely the best UI), they won't do alone.All that said, we have no use for halfassed solutions or ideas straight from the drawing board. A new UI should be a better UI to make any sense.As for all the under-the-hood stuff and purge of deprecated code and api's - I'm content with a slowish trickle for the next 2.x releases. After all, Gnome works pretty well as it is.